The Enduring Moment, The Heart Of Warmth
by ambitiousbutrubbish
Summary: Tevinter. A forest. A clearing. A reunion. If only for a little while. - Dorian/Iron Bull


**A/N:** Includes a slight deviation from canon, and far more dialogue than I'm really comfortable writing.

Title from Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which kind of reflects the tone I'm going for:

" _In such fortunate moments as I fall asleep I know beyond doubt what the real centre of my own life is, that time that is past and lost and yet permanent, the enduring moment, the heart of warmth._

 _I am not trying to say that I was happy [...] I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was a thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognise at the time; I mean joy."_

Sequel to **And Must My Name Until I Die Be No More Than An Alibi** and **Every New Beginning (Some Other Beginning's End)**

* * *

Bull finds that the skills that he learned from his time as a Ben-Hassrath are useful in the most unexpected ways, especially now that he has left the group long behind. In this case the skill in question is his memory. Dalish has never been particularly delicate nor careful with her use of magic, and in the process of confirming the origin of the letter she had as good as destroyed it. But luckily Bull had the contents memorised long before he handed it over to her. Next time he needs an identification spell, he'll go seek out someone who has received actual formal training. He supposes he's just been spoiled by Dorian, who can manage almost anything that's asked of him.

As long as it isn't a healing spell that doesn't involve siphoning energy from the dead. And Bull is yet to meet someone who isn't a Necromancer that doesn't find that slightly too creepy to request.

It's ironic, then, that with all his natural talents, Dorian has dedicated his life to the skill that he can not master, regardless of all his efforts. Dorian is not a healer, but he wants to fix his homeland anyway.

Bull can't help but wonder if he would do better to break it and build it all again.

Regardless, the letter turned out to be legitimate, which is why Bull now finds himself slipping over the border to Tevinter just before the break of dawn, the hood of his specially made dark cloak pulled up over his head. It's more overtly covert than he would have preferred in his Ben-Hassrath days, but he's not spying now, not trying to get any information. He's _hiding_ , sneaking across the border to a small forest not far into the Imperium, but far enough that he would be captured if seen, rather than killed outright.

According to the letter that had somehow found it's way to him in the Hissing Wastes from Dorian's estate untainted, there is a small clearing in the heart of the forest. But not knowing its layout, Bull's way there is far more hopeful wandering than a straight path, and the sun is in the sky before the trees fall away to reveal a similarly cloaked figure standing in the clearing waiting for him.

Even with his hood up obscuring his features and the cloak hiding the shape of his body, Bull recognises the figure immediately; the way he stands, the way his head shoots up the moment he hears Bull approaching.

"Krem!" Bull calls out, and Krem sweeps the hood from his head, revealing his grinning face.

Bull has seen Krem occasionally through the sending crystal that Dorian uses to communicate with him while they're apart, but it's different to seeing him in the flesh. In the crystal Krem's face looks tiny, the details difficult to pick out. When he'd come to him only a few hours after Dorian left and told him he was going after Dorian to look after him where Bull couldn't, he had worried about what Tevinter would do to him. The first night after they properly introduced themselves to each other, Krem had told him that he was never going to return to the land of his birth, and the mental power alone that it would've taken to cross the border must have taken its toll, not to mention the high likelihood that he would be roughed up by Dorian's enemies that wouldn't dare touch a Magister. Krem is tough, tougher than a human really has any right to be, but he doesn't have a drop of magic in him in a country ruled by mages.

But Krem looks good. The Northern sun has settled into his bones like he never left. There's the twinkle in his eye that he gets when he's spoiling for a fight. He's bulked up, even though he hasn't been scrawny since Bull met him as a kid, and his grin has a kind of reckless confidence to it that tells Bull that Krem has been using his maul a _lot_. It's a good look on him, and Bull breaths a sigh of relief that he's been holding in for months.

"Chief!" Krem calls back and strides across the clearing to meet him halfway. Krem has never been much of a hugger, but Bull is, and he pulls him in tight as he laughs a "good to see you."

"You too Krem Puff" he replies and Krem huffs a laugh and pushes himself out of Bull's hug in mock frustration.

"I should've bought my father with me to hear you say that. I'd love to see you get beat by an old man." And Krem is absolutely beaming at him while the implication of that sets in.

Bull laughs, delighted. "You found him?" Krem only spoke of missing one thing from Tevinter - the father who sold himself into slavery to provide for him. Well, two: his dad, and the food. Three if you counted his early lamentations about the weather, but he grew used to that quickly. But mostly his father, and that they've reunited makes Bull think that Krem returning to the homeland that rejected him and chased him out was worth it.

"Your Altus did, actually." He replies, and Krem immediately launches into the tale; Dorian blasting his way into a rival Magister's mansion flanked by three raised bodies and demanding that the other man give up his slaves. The other Magister had not only done that, he'd fled Minrathous and hasn't been seen in the Magisterium since. "It worked so well that Dorian considered just doing the same for all the slave owners in the Imperium, before Maevaris reminded him that that would just get him killed before the two of them ever had the chance to change the laws, and that all their progress would be rendered moot once he was dead and the Magisters who had relented in fear declared it illegal." Krem shakes his head, but it's fond, fond in the way he used to get when the Chargers would start bar fights for whatever good cause they decided to take up, and that he's doing the same for Dorian and his Magister partner now speaks more of the good work that they're doing than anything could. "She's a smart woman, that one. Mostly gotten over her public scandals, unlike Dorian. Married a dwarf, did you know? One of Varric's cousins, if you'll believe it. But she's got her head on straight and she keeps Dorian in line."

Bull remembers when Dorian got his birthright back from that Orlesian idiot. He spent days before hand making plans in secret, convincing himself that confronting him was the only way. Likely Dorian would have remained without the amulet if Bull and the Boss hadn't followed him to the meeting, Dorian's unwillingness to make a scene for his own personal gain only disappearing with support. The fact that he's blasting down doors now and demanding his will be met speaks of how far he's come, how much his self-confidence has grown since they met. How it's about his worth as a human being, not just as a beautiful vessel with some powerful magics. Elite Tevinter messes up her children in much the same way that the Qun does.

"Where is Dorian, anyway?" Bull asks, and Krem smirks.

"You know I'm not entirely sure." Which is obviously a lie; Krem takes every single job he has seriously, and now being in charge of Dorian's safety, he likely knows where he is at all hours of the day. "He said something about giving you and I time to talk before he monopolises all your attention, or whatever. I try not to listen to him too often. Someone's got to keep him humble. Remind him we don't all find him as charming and riviting he does." The smirk grows more teasing. "I hope he turns up soon, though, because he owes me money. Bet you wouldn't go five minutes without asking after him, and by my reckoning it's been at least ten."

Bull laughs again and it's good, it's so good to see Krem again, even better to hear him tease Dorian in the way that he does with friends. Bull remembers when they first met, and Krem had seemed disappointed in Dorian somehow. He's glad that they got past their early antagonisms. He's glad that they're here together. He'd be gladder if they were together South of Tevinter with him and the Chargers, but he's happy that they have each other's backs here.

"How's that humbling coming along?"

"Not great. You'd think he'd care more about the opinion of the man in charge of his own personal guard, but you'd be wrong." There's pride in Krem's voice. Not the kind of pride you feel for your friends, but the kind that sits in your bones, the pride at doing a job and doing it well. Krem may have led the Chargers occasionally, and they were his friends, but they've always been Bull's boys. These men here, they're Krem's. Krem worked hard to get to where he is now. Bull joined the Inquisition at his urging, so everything they have, every way their lives have changed for the better, are down to him. He's sure Tevinter isn't the first place Krem would've wanted to end up, but he has every right to be proud. And Bull tells him so.

"Yeah, it's good work," Krem says, with an embarrassed shrug, "but I do miss the Chargers. 'Vints can drink, but it's all fancy wine; nothing you can sing with. Which sucker is your lieutenant now?"

"None of them would take it." Bull replies. "Said it was your job." Krem looks equal parts touched and exasperated by that admission, which truthfully was how Bull had felt about it at the time, too. Bull doesn't know if he believes in a god or the gods, he's seen evidence that something of the sort might exist, and it might as easily not, but either way, sometimes he thinks it was more than just coincidence that bought himself and Krem to that bar just out of Tevinter on the same day. "Luckily people were looking for something to do once the Boss disbanded the Inquisition and I managed to snag a few. You might have to share being a lieutenant with Lace Harding when you're done wrangling 'Vints. "

Krem laughs, and tells Bull to fill him in on the Charger's activities since he's been gone and Bull obliges, prodding until Krem tells him about the work he's been doing in Tevinter in return. He's half-way through a story about the time Rocky and Skinner had to hitch a ride with a group of minstrels - with Krem snickering along knowing their opposing views on the enjoyment of non-murdering singers - when there is a soft slide and thump and rustle and Dorian appears at the edge of the clearing. Bull's story trails off without him truly realising that he has fallen silent. Krem looks confused for a moment, before he turns to where Bull is looking and spots Dorian standing there equally as unresponsive. When he turns back to Bull he rolls his eyes, but the smile has returned to his face.

"And that's my cue to leave." He says, clasps Bull firmly on the shoulder. "Horns up, Chief."

"Horns up." Bull echoes back, but it's distracted and his return of Krem's gesture is weak enough that Krem is able to shrug his hand off and slip away. And Bull and Dorian are alone in the clearing.

Like Krem, Bull has only seen small glimpses of Dorian in the sending crystals, and also like Krem, they have not done him justice. Bull has heard it said that people become more attractive in your memories, their imperfections erased with nostalgia and longing. But Dorian looks amazing. Better than he remembers. He's darker than he had been in the South - skin and clothes and eyelashes - and warmer, the gold on his fingers matching that in his ears, a serpent winding from lobe and around the rim in one, the other dotted with studs and rings. They glitter in the sunlight in the same way that Dorian seems to glow, confident and self-assured and beaming and at the same time they both lurch towards each other artlessly, Bull grabbing Dorian around the waist and lifting his feet off the ground in a hug as he buries his face in his hair. He smells like sunshine.

Dorian lets him have the hug for a few seconds before he pounds on his shoulder to be put down. "As lovely as your chest is, _amatus_ , I would rather see your face."

Bull chuckles at that, though he does comply, sets Dorian back softly on the ground, but keeps him close, hands wrapped around his waist so Dorian has to crane his neck back to look at him. "I have missed you." Dorian says, and once Bull managed to convince an Orlesian nobleman that he wasn't sleeping with his wife even when he found the two of them naked in bed together, but he can't find the words now to say everything that he wants to say to Dorian.

Instead he bends down, kisses him and Dorian smiles into it, deepens the kiss and wraps his arms around Bull's neck, pulls himself up onto his toes. Bull's hands tighten, and Dorian makes a soft little sound in the back of his throat and Bull has to pull back for a moment, presses their foreheads together. "Dorian." He whispers, and it's far enough on the breathless side that it would be embarrassing for someone more given to the emotion. But Bull knows that it hits Dorian in all the right ways, that Dorian understands just from his name what Bull is asking for.

Dorian makes that soft little sound again, tilts his head slightly so their lips brush together and just breathes for a moment with his eyes closed before slowly pulling back. "Regrettably, Krem would definitely overhear us." He says, and that is enough to jolt Bull back into reality, to remind him where they are and of Krem just behind the line of trees waiting and Bull can't help but laugh.

"Okay." he says. "But next time don't bring Krem."

Dorian scoffs. "Of course I'm going to bring Krem. I know you miss him."

And Dorian isn't wrong. If Dorian leaving was like ripping out his heart, then Krem was losing a limb, the eye that he _did_ lose for him. A dull throb that you could live with, but always reminded you of what you were missing. A phantom feeling that tricked you into thinking something was there until you tried to use it and it wasn't. "Fine. But tell him to pack earmuffs or something."

Dorian laughs, and it's so lovely that Bull has to kiss him again, slower this time and sweeter, without any intent but to remind himself that Dorian is with him now. When they break apart this time Dorian's eyes are slightly unfocused, his smile a little dazed, and Bull would happily do nothing but kiss him again and again, alone in this little forest in Tevinter, free from the rest of the world.

Instead he sits, dragging Dorian down with him so he's sprawled across his lap, and pulls him snug against his chest. Dorian wriggles a little, tucks his head up under his chin, and for a moment they just sit together.

"I've missed you too, _kadan_." Bull finally manages in reply to Dorian's earlier pronouncement, and Dorian shudders slightly in response. "Tell me how you've been since we last spoke."

It had only been three days ago, but Dorian can manage a lot in three days, and he has a gift for storytelling either way, a sense of performance in his speech that makes the most mundane sound interesting. Back in Skyhold, once they got themselves figured out and realised there was more to _them_ than just sex, they had spent long nights awake simply talking to each other, and Bull is glad that even if everything else about them was forced by circumstances to change, the ease that they have talking hasn't.

Dorian is beautiful, everyone can see that. But he's also wickedly smart, which people don't expect. Southern ignorance of Tevinter makes them look at him and think pretty rich boy skating by on his looks and money and privilege, without knowing the unachievable value the country also places on intelligence. And Dorian saw everything about him that his parents and his compatriots lauded as failings and tried to hide it behind books and knowledge. When Bull first became Tal-Vashoth, every member of the Inquisitor's Inner Circle took him aside to tell him how great it was, how much better off he would be free from the Qun. And while their support was touching, he had been left with a lifetime of beliefs and no way to reconcile everything he had known with his new reality. Everyone congratulated him on leaving, but he wasn't sure they weren't wrong to do so, that they shouldn't quickly put him down before he turned on them all in madness. It was Dorian who wrapped himself around him at night and debated the merits of the Qun with him, helped him work through the emotions and thoughts he had repressed for years.

When they had first met, Dorian had known nothing about the Qunari except crass Tevinter propaganda. Their earliest interactions had Dorian tossing out offensive stereotypes and seeing which would stick. The amount of research he must have done to hold an informed conversation when it was needed, on top of the work he was doing for the Inquisition, was staggering.

By the time Corypheus was defeated and Dorian announced his decision to return to Tevinter eventually, Bull had largely come to terms with being Tal-Vashoth, and it was Dorian who needed a listening ear. And now that Dorian has taken up his place as a Magister, he uses Bull as a sounding board to develop strategies for dealing with the Magisterium and the wider Tevinter social structure. When Dorian hits a block in negotiations where he and Maevaris find themselves stuck, he activates the crystal to speak to Bull. Or at him. Or around him. And by the time they've finished they have a new plan of attack. Often several.

It's really just an added bonus that Bull finds intelligence to be really hot.

Not all of their conversation are productive, though, and Dorian also contacts him to complain, which Bull enjoys just as much. It's easy to imagine Dorian with him then, curled up under the covers in Skyhold and moaning about the cold, or marching through the Hissing Wastes and the sand. Or the Fallow Mire and the bog. Also the corpses. For a guy who raises the dead on a regular basis, Dorian complains an awful lot about the undead. Bull had asked why once, and Dorian had sneered something about "professional distaste." And when he really pays attention to the corpses raised by Dorian's necromancy, he notices how much more alive, how much less stilted they look than the other undead he sees.

It's fitting, then, that apparently what has happened since Bull spoke to him last is only what makes him complain: how slow change is, how unimportant the trivial matters the Magisterium wants to discuss are, how stupid so many of the Magisters have proven themselves to be, trying to live in a past that they didn't even live in the first time: for not seeing how past actions led to the degeneration and degradation of the modern Imperium. And Bull holds him close and quickens his breath so they breathe in tandem and wishes everything else away, just for a moment.

-00000-

Bull hardly notices the soft tickle of grass against his back, not when it's countered by the solid weight of Dorian on his chest, the man's deep, slow breaths huffing out against his neck. They had spoken for nearly an hour before Bull's leg had started to cramp and in straightening it out again he found it easier to simply stretch out on his back. Dorian had followed him down, spread out over his chest with his chin resting on his shoulder, and conversation had gradually wound down until they were just lying together in a silence only broken by occasional humming and the little rasping sound Dorian makes when he is on the edge of drifting off. Bull has his eye closed and his hand resting on the small of Dorian's back. Sometimes he drags it up and down along Dorian's spine, rubs his thumb in small circles. But mostly it just sits there, a reminder of Dorian's steady presence.

It would seem a waste to spend what little time he has with Dorian dozing off, except his current teetering on the edge of wakefulness is better than any sleep he's had since Dorian left. Bull never had problems sleeping alone before, but since Dorian started staying the night, he only really relaxes with Dorian in his arms.

Their comfortable, hazy silence is broken by heavy, deliberate footfalls and Krem stumbles his way out of the trees. He is rarely quite so uncoordinated and for a moment Bull worries that he has been hurt, that Dorian's political enemies have found them somehow, and his eye snaps open and he pushes himself up a little to turn his head to look. Dorian grumbles at the movement and tightens his arm around Bull's waist to stop himself slipping off his chest and onto the grass, but otherwise he doesn't open his eyes.

Closed eyes seem to be Krem's only problem too. Or if not closed, than covered with one hand, the other groping in front of him for obstacles, presumably so he doesn't catch them doing anything he wouldn't want to see. Bull rumbles a laugh at that, and Dorian finally opens his eyes in response, turns his head slightly to glare at Krem. "As if I would in the grass." He scoffs, taking in Krem's covered eyes. "Entirely unsanitary. Bugs and all sorts."

Krem huffs, but doesn't lower his hand. "Whatever. We have to go. I'll leave you to say goodbye." And he stumbles back the way he came.

Dorian sighs, and Bull tightens his grip around him as if it can make him stay. "I'll go with you, _kadan_."

" _Amatus_ " Dorian says, and he seems to collapse a little under the weight of this conversation. "You know you can't. It isn't safe." His voice is barely above a whisper, and it's as sad as the first time Bull asked. And as determined to not be questioned.

"I know. But it doesn't hurt to ask."

"It does, a little."

"Yeah." Bull finishes, and he has dropped to a whisper too. It does hurt. Like every time he's been stabbed or electrified or lit on fire. Like watching a friend get hurt. Like leaving behind his Tama and his childhood and his people. But there is hope there, too. A promise. Love. And even if Dorian never manages to reform Tevinter, even if they never get to be together in the way that they want, even if they only ever get to spend short times together like they have today, Bull wouldn't lose them for the world.

Dorian pushes himself up to stand after a moment and reaches his hand down to help Bull to his feet. His knee is not so bad that he can't get up on his own yet, but it's not good either, and it's always useful to have a counterpoint. Especially one like Dorian who uses his magic as a buffer behind Bull to push him up as he pulls. A relatively pointless gesture, but sweet nonetheless.

Bull stands, but he doesn't let go of Dorian's hand right away, keeps them clasped together at Dorian's chest height and steps closer so they are pressed between them. He looks down at Dorian. Dorian, who is by no means small, but is smaller than him, and at the same time somehow bigger. Expansive. Everything. He reaches with his other hand to tangle his fingers in Dorian's hair, tilt his head back and kiss him again, for the last time in who knows how long. When they pull apart he thinks there might be tears in Dorian's eyes, but it's hard to tell when his own vision is so blurry.

"I am looking for somewhere better for us to meet." Dorian says. "A house, perhaps. I'll have Krem write again when it is safe to do so." Bull has to chuckle at the thought that it would be better for Dorian to write to him, his chicken scratch handwriting both instantly recognisable as his own, and incomprehensible enough that it would be as good as writing in code without having to go through all the trouble.

"Looking forward to it, _kadan_." He says, and smiles down at Dorian.

Dorian smiles back, and it's only a little sad. "As am I, _amatus_."

And they part.

-00000-

By the time Bull gets back to the Chargers the sun has set. He finds his boys in the tavern next to the inn that they had practically rented out exclusively to the mercenary company. When the door to the tavern swings open every head swings around to look at him. They let out a drunken cheer as one. Bull roars back, makes is way inside to the bar where Stitches, Dalish and Harding have left a space for him with a mug of ale waiting.

Lying in bed later, he fingers the crystal around his neck where he wears it next to the dragon tooth and wonders how long it takes for Dorian to get home so he can hear his voice again.

* * *

 **A/N:** Dorian is an academic he would have the worst handwriting and it would be the only imperfection that he would be proud of because all the best academics have handwriting that only they can read, don't you know?

(This needs serious editing but it's going out to the world because I just can't look at it any longer)

Now with sequels: **Maul The World Like A Carnival Bear Set Free** and **Burn Down The City Just To Show You The Lights**


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